Enjoying a baseball-less October

October 6, 2013

I am extremely happy that the major league baseball season is over - at least for my Chicago White Sox. Obviously, some of the better teams are still playing, so the season is not over for everyone. This long season has actually been over from some time for me.

Locally I also follow the Baltimore Orioles and the Washington Nationals. They both had exciting seasons.

I am one of those lifelong, die-hard old fashioned major league baseball fans. I listen to their games on the internet every single day all season long. I usually go to one game in Chicago each year and one game when they play in Baltimore each year. In sixteen of the last eighteen years, the White Sox have been either in first or second place in their division. I have been pretty spoiled with their annual success. Most games over the years we had a good chance of winning no matter who we were playing. We had the best record in baseball in the games against the National League over the last ten or so years. This year was a rare exception (thank goodness) and makes me much more empathetic to the cross-town rivals, those Chicago Cubs.

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The Yankee fans will not understand, but the last World Series of the Cubs was 104 years ago. The White Sox won the World Series in 2005. It is the only time they have won a World Series in my lifetime. (I was born in 1945). Another time (1959) they at least played in the World Series, but lost to the Dodgers.

For clarification here, I am originally from Illinois. When you are a Chicago baseball fan, you have a choice you like the Cubs or the White Sox. There is no third option. You do not like both.

I have been a Chicago White Sox fan my entire life. It came in my DNA. My grandfather loved the White Sox. I listened to the White Sox on the radio back in the day while sitting next to my grandfather. I "inherited" my love of the team from my grandfather.

And that has carried over in my family. My son is a huge White Sox fan.

My favorite player was Nelson "Nellie" Fox, No. 2, and an All-Star second baseman for the White Sox. People think I liked him because he was from nearby St. Thomas, Pennsylvania. No I liked him because he played for my team.

I recently spoke at Wilson College on Nellie Fox and had the honor of having Nellie's widow (he died of cancer in 1975) show up to the talk. I had heard her speak in 1997 in Cooperstown, New York for his induction into the baseball Hall of Fame. Nellie Fox played on that 1959 World Series team, was the American League's Most Valuable Player and later coached for the Washington Senators.

This year's edition of the White Sox has been awful, with a capitol A. They only had four fundamental flaws. They couldn't hit a lick. They couldn't pitch at all. And they could not catch or throw. Besides that, they were OK. They finished dead last in their division, by far. They won about sixty of their 162 games. That folks is not good in any sport.

At the trading deadline, the White Sox traded away my favorite pitcher, Jake Peavy, pitcher Matt Thornton and outfielder Alex Rios to "go younger" and start their rebuild for next year. I am OK with trading players, though I have never gorgiven them for trading Nellie Fox to the Houston Colt 45s way back in 1963.

How does this translate for next year? I will still be a White Sox fan, as I have been every year and every game since about age 8 around 1953. I am not jumping ship after one bad (OK terrible) year. You have heard the expression "wait until next year." I have heard that expression before and used it often over the years.

As I look at my team, there is hope for next year. There are good young players who got to play as the season wound down to its final days. Many of the Sox pitchers were hurt this year. They should be back and they could be good.

Will the Chicago White Sox be back to first or second place next year? Maybe, maybe not. But I'll take my chances. Meanwhile, I will continue to cheer for the White Sox and anyone who is playing the New York Yankees. Yes, I am a die-hard Yankee hater. It comes with the territory. Anyone who is not a Yankee fan will understand.